The Supreme Courtroom on Wednesday will wade into a brand new marketing campaign finance debate when it hears a problem introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz to a legislation limiting the sum of money that may be repaid to candidates who mortgage massive sums to their very own campaigns.

The case might illustrate how the present courtroom, with its 6-3 conservative majority, weighs authorities efforts to restrict potential political corruption when its treatments conflict with free-speech claims.

The dispute hinges on a bit of the 20-year-old Bipartisan Marketing campaign Reform Act that bars a marketing campaign from utilizing greater than $250,000 in post-election funds to repay a candidate’s loans to fund his or her marketing campaign.

Cruz, a Texas Republican, loaned $260,000 to his profitable 2018 marketing campaign towards Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.

After the election — the most costly Senate race in U.S. historical past on the time — Cruz’s marketing campaign committee had greater than $2 million in money available, however purposefully didn’t repay Cruz the complete quantity of his mortgage inside a 20-day window. The $10,000 of Cruz’s mortgage that exceeded the quarter-million-dollar reimbursement restrict was due to this fact recharacterized as a contribution to his marketing campaign.

Cruz has argued that the regulation violates the First Modification’s free speech safety. A federal district courtroom sided with Cruz, ruling that the legislation discourages “the private financing of marketing campaign speech.” The senator desires the Supreme Courtroom to affirm the decrease courtroom’s judgment.

The Federal Election Fee appealed, arguing to the high court that the cap on post-election mortgage reimbursement “imposes at most a modest burden on First Modification rights.” The FEC additionally argues that Cruz has not proven he has standing to problem the legislation as a result of “the harm was self-inflicted.”

The company contends that the restrict is important to keep away from the looks of political corruption that may erode confidence within the authorities. That purpose is “an curiosity of the very best order,” the FEC mentioned.

“Using post-election contributions to repay private loans creates a heightened danger of precise and obvious quid professional quo corruption,” the company argued, as a result of “cash that repays a private mortgage after an election successfully goes into the candidate’s pocket.”

It additionally notes that “a donor who contributes cash earlier than an election doesn’t but know whether or not the recipient of the contribution will prevail, however a donor who contributes after an election does.”

The courtroom will doubtless difficulty a ruling within the case by late June or earlier.